Interdisciplinary Research Manual - Units.muohio.edu

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terms can normally be limited to one sentence and defined in the text immediately after
you use them the first time, even if you include them in a glossary as well.
Appendix, Appendices. If you include an appendix (or several appendices), it
should be on the last pages before the back cover. An appendix might include original
data you collected, transcripts of interviews you conducted, email correspondence with
an expert in the field, short hard-to-find documents (e.g., found in unpublished archives
or out-of-print books), photographs you took of your subject, etc. If you make explicit
use of this material in the body of the project, then you should include it as a table, figure,
or illustration in the body of the project (as close as possible to immediately after your
first mention of it in the text). If it is too long (i.e., it would disrupt the flow of the
chapter), then consider putting the full document in the appendix and an excerpt, figure,
diagram, etc. based on it in the chapter.
Mechanics
Common Punctuation Errors. When in doubt, do not use a comma; you need a
reason to use a comma. For example, do not use a comma before a phrase; e.g., no
comma before “and” in “The job exposed me to the inner workings of running a business
and providing customer service.”
Don’t use a comma before the second half of a compound sentence; e.g., no
comma before “and” in “We are all consumers and have all had customer service
experience.”
Use a comma to separate short complete sentences connected by a conjunction;
e.g., “We are all consumers of goods, and we have all had service experience.”
Use a semi-colon to separate two complete sentences that are longer or when the
connection between them is anything other than a conjunction; e.g., “We are all
consumers in this world; however, some of us have had more shopping experience than
others.”
Use commas to set off a phrase that interrupts the flow of the sentence; e.g.,
“Community members are more than registered users because, instead of just
contributing information, they also interact with other users.”
No need for an apostrophe in dates; e.g., 1960s not 1960’s.
Periods and commas go inside the quotation marks, while colons and semi-colons
go outside the quotation marks. In-text citations are part of the sentence but usually not
part of the quotation, so they go inside the period but outside the quotation marks, as in
“The readings based on Foucault are sensitive to the political impacts of Buddhism”
(Greene 2005).
Quotes within quotes go in single quotation marks; e.g., Horrocks suggests that
“all writers are engaged in ‘sub-creation’ to the extent that…”
E.g., i.e., et al., and etc. are all (with the exception of “et” in “et al.”)
abbreviations of Latin words so they need periods: “e.g.,” indicates that an example
follows; “i.e.,” indicates that a clarification or explanation follows; and “et al.” indicates
that there was more than one co-author; and you know what “etc.” indicates.
It’s is an abbreviation for “it is”; its is possessive; and there is no such thing as its’
The apostrophe goes after the “s” in the plural form of a noun; e.g., “peasants’
revolt.” When a name ends in “s,” the possessive adds “’s”; e.g., “Chris’s.”